My blogs accept advertising, ads and links
Writing for more than 40 years
Winner of Sunday Times Literary Award for Confessions of a Gambler

Mar 26, 2012

Can you live without friendship

Friendship can never be outgrown unless you allow it to dry up and draw seed and it is forever lost in the wind. Friendship has to be nurtured – kept alive with postcards and phone calls, emails and little gifts throughout the year. I am talking about the kind of friendship where you can pop up out of the blue after having been married or on vacation or working in the African bush for half a century, and able to pick up after all that time and carry on again.

Different kinds of friendships

• The snapshot friendship which is a hi and bye kind of acquaintance relationship;

• The office friends who go out with you and discuss things in the workplace;

• The spiritual friendship you have with someone you go to church, mosque or synagogue with,

• The rat pack friendship you have with three or four girls where you go out and party together and have each others backs.

• The best friend at high school you got into trouble with, and that you were friends with throughout the years, even throughout marriage and divorce,

• The friendship you have with women at religious meetings or book clubs,

• The friend that stood with you in the divorce court queue to fight for custody of the kids, helped you out when you were broke, watched you cry as your daughter was hooked up to lifesaving equipment, knows all your secrets and even some your partner did not know of,

• The friend who is there for you 24/7 who will get out of bed in the middle of the night to come and turn off the water that has started to leak from the geyser,

• At the top of the list is the friend who not only knows you better than anyone, but a friend with whom you have a strong emotional connection. You can talk about anything and everything and know your privacy will be protected as the friendship is based on respect and love. A strong emotional tie with someone of the opposite sex is sometimes stronger than physical love relationships.